# Schoolteachers, why do you love teaching?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schoolteachers-why-do-you-love-teaching/57452
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [March 10, 2001, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schoolteachers-why-do-you-love-teaching/57452 "2001-03-10T16:54:15Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Albert\_Rose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Albert_Rose)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2001, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schoolteachers-why-do-you-love-teaching/57452/1 "2001-03-10T16:54:15Z")
I need some inspiration. I teach high school in Mount Dora, FL, and have remained in the profession only because I enjoy working with the kids. This isn’t enough lately.
So, teachers of anything and anybody, why do you stick around?
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### Author:  [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2001, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/schoolteachers-why-do-you-love-teaching/57452/2 "2001-03-11T06:22:34Z")
I used to teach all ranges of people from high school grads to people on the verge of retirement. I discovered I had a knack for getting people to become numerate (the mathematical equivalent of literate) and actually learn to _like_ algebra, geometry, etc. It gave me a case of the warm fuzzies when somebody who had never been able to deal with fractions was finally able to solve first order equations _and actually understand what they were doing_.
Teaching is my first choice for a career, and I stayed in the field for about twelve years. I finally gave it up because I had maxed-out on the pay scale, and it wasn’t enough. I taught electricity, electronics, semiconductor physics & the related math. It was in a technical college, which I guess pays better than public schools but it still wasn’t enough when you consider that I could be out working in the same field I am teaching and make twice as much.
I’m not sure about teaching high school though… maybe if it was a small class in a magnet school- you know, kids that really _wanted_ to learn. But I couldn’t tolerate the zoo atmosphere that I suspect must be present in half of the inner city high schools. The warm fuzzies just wouldn’t be enough to keep me there.
Just hang tight there- I hear that GWB has his finger on the pulse of the school system as we speak, and is poised & ready to solve all our problems.
:rolleyes: